The land issue was the pillar of Kenyan resistance against colonialism
How
do nations truly break free from colonial chains? What happens when a
population, stripped of its land and dignity, decides to fight back
against an empire? And what enduring legacies are left when freedom is
finally won, but the wounds of the past refuse to heal? These questions
lie at the heart of Kenya’s struggle for independence.
Kenya was a
prime example of a settler colony, a territory where the colonizing
power actively encouraged its own citizens to emigrate, establishing
permanent communities. The indigenous communities were forcefully
removed from their land. Their cultures, and languages were obliterated.
In
Africa’s settler colonies – Kenya, South Africa, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe),
and Algeria – the struggle against apartheid, institutional racism,
imperialism, dispossession, and corresponding inequities was violent,
protracted, and witnessed mass atrocities.
Dismissed by some as a “barbaric tribal outfit” and celebrated by others as a liberation movement, the Mau Mau uprising epitomized a desperate groundswell of resistance.
FILE PHOTO: Mau Mau soldiers at a crater camp, Meurland, Kenya, December 1, 1963. © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
The Mau Mau uprising
From
1952 to 1960, the British Kenya Colony became a battleground between
the colonizers and the natives. This was the Mau Mau uprising, a
conflict that pitted the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), more
commonly known as the Mau Mau, against the might of the British Empire.
It
was an underground movement that waged a bush war of liberation against
the British settlers in Kenya. Some critics dismissed Mau Mau as a
barbaric tribal outfit, while others characterized it as a nationalistic
liberation movement, Later, in the 1970s, the name of the movement gave
life to the term ‘to mau-mau’ which meant ‘to intimidate someone, such
as an official, through hostile confrontation or threats’ and reflected
the historical British version of the Mau Mau’s actions – a version that
did not acknowledge the grievances of the Kikuyu or the atrocities
committed against them.
FILE PHOTO: British policemen holding villagers at gunpoint during a search, Kariobangi, 1952. © Getty Images/Bettmann
At
the heart of the KLFA’s ranks were the Kikuyu, Meru, and Embu
communities, as well as Kamba and Maasai, driven by land alienation and
systemic oppression. They faced the British Army, bolstered by the local
Kenya Regiment, a force comprised of British colonists and local
auxiliary militia – the home guards.
FILE PHOTO: Police bring 27 accused men to court, Githunguri, April 14, 1953. © Getty Images/Bettmann
The
Mau Mau, operating from the dense forests of the Aberdare Range and
Mount Kenya, employed guerrilla tactics, and intermittently struck
against colonial infrastructure. The British painted them as barbaric,
which further exacerbated the conflict and obscured the underlying
issues of land ownership, political representation, and cultural
identity.
The liberation war in Kenya was so intense that a state
of emergency was declared in 1952. The Mau Mau uprising epitomized a
groundswell of resistance against imperialism, racism, and feudalism. It
was also a response to discriminatory labor laws, and abrogation of
basic liberties.
The tide began to turn in the autumn of 1956. On
October 21, in the Aberdare forests, Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi, the
leader of the Mau Mau, was captured. For the British, it marked the
effective end of their military campaign.
Although pockets of
resistance continued, the flame of the uprising began to fade, leaving
behind a legacy of struggle that would ultimately pave the way for
Kenya’s independence gained in 1963. However, the post-independence era
was significantly shaped by collaboration with the colonial power, and
much of the institutional framework inherited from the colonial state
continued to influence governance.
FILE PHOTO: Dedan Kimathi Waciuri at his trial, Nyeri forest, 1956. © Authenticated News/Archive Photos/Getty Images
Land issue
It
is actually the land issue that was central to Kenyans’ resistance
against colonialism. Agrarian and pastoralist communities agitated for
the return of colonially grabbed land across Kenya, especially in areas
that were then called white highlands – the fertile central and Rift
Valley regions predominantly inhabited by Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Meru and
Maasai communities. Severely affected by land grabs were the Maasai, a
pastoralist community, which was robbed of swaths of land by the British
settlers.
Great Rift Valley, Kenya. © Sputnik/ivanmateev
Through
devious land agreements, Maasai leaders were duped into giving away
their heritage. The settlers grabbed Maasai land in the Rift Valley.
These infamous agreements included the 1904 agreement under which the
British forced the Maasai from their large tracts of grazing land in the
Rift Valley into two reserves. Reserves were marginalized areas for
natives. So detrimental was this agreement that it reduced Maasai land
by 60%-70%.
In 1911, the British coerced the Maasai, on the pain
of gun violence, to surrender more land for settlement and ranches in
Laikipia (a county which has been hosting British troops since 1963). As
a result, the Maasai were forcefully moved to a derelict reserve
further south.
FILE PHOTO: Three Maasai men, British East Africa, January 2, 1906. © Bristol Archives/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
In
1923, these land grabs were legalized through the Colonial Land
Ordinance – a legislation that fundamentally changed land ownership
during British colonial rule in Kenya from communal landholding to
individual titles. This alien form of land ownership further facilitated
encroachment on Maasai communal land and postcolonial land grabs by the
political elite.
The liberation war was waged specifically
against racially charged economic policies that advanced inequalities,
poverty, and exploitation. This revolt galvanized native workers
affected by degrading labor conditions. The colonial state racially
excluded these workers and the peasantry.
Denied basic amenities, the reserves, inhabited by the indigenous
people, epitomized state neglect. Agricultural extension services were
not available to native farmers since all resources were channeled to
European settlers. The setting up of ranches or conservancies
disregarded indigenous land rights and excluded indigenous communities
from land and resources under the pretext of conservation.
This
style of land dispossession seems still to persist in Kenya, and there
has been no attempt to remedy these historical injustices. A government
commission of inquiry popularly known as Ndung’u Land Commission (after
the name of its chair, Paul Ndungu) was established in 2003 to
investigate illegal/irregular allocation of land virtually throughout
Kenya’s postcolonial period. However, successive governments ignored the
far-reaching recommendations of the commission.
Colonial legacy?
The
issue of land injustices appears to have been further compounded by
successive postcolonial governments through notable land acquisitions.
The actions of Kenya’s political elite in accumulating land, sometimes
without adequate public oversight, have been identified as contributing
factors to extensive landlessness across the country.
Kenyan vegetable farmer. © Getty Images/boezie
This
uneven distribution of development and national resources has posed
consistent challenges to national planning and implementation by
postcolonial governments. These governments tended to prioritize urban
areas, particularly the capital city, Nairobi, often resulting in
disparities in progress compared to rural areas. Within urban settings,
significant portions of the population reside in informal settlements,
frequently lacking sufficient basic facilities such as housing,
sanitation, and infrastructure, indicating areas of sustained
underdevelopment.
Development programs have, at times, shown
limited consideration for diversity, leading to concerns about
individuals facing exclusion based on ethnicity, religion, region,
gender, and class. The introduction of devolved power, resources, and
decision-making to the periphery, effective in 2013, was specifically
designed to address these deeply rooted political and economic
disparities.
The land redistribution program initiated at Kenya’s
independence, aimed at restoring land to its original communities,
evolved in ways that facilitated significant land acquisition by the
first president, Jomo Kenyatta, and his close associates.
The
process involved the deployment of state resources and specific legal
interpretations. The historical and ongoing issues surrounding land
distribution are frequently cited as factors in the cyclical interethnic
tensions prevalent in Kenya’s multiparty politics. Some of the Kikuyu
peasants displaced from their ancestral central region were resettled in
the Rift Valley and Coastal regions which attracted hostility from the
host communities.
Young Maasai boy with goats, Kenya. © Getty Images/hadynyah
Since
Mau Mau fought for reclamation of land and freedom, the outfit was
banned since the colonial period and was only unbanned as recently as
2003. It took so long to be unbanned even after independence because its
ideology of egalitarianism was at variance with the Eurocentric and
avaricious ideology pursued by the dominant postcolonial elite.
Although
sometimes erroneously depicted in historical narratives as a leader of
the Mau Mau, Kenyatta evidently viewed the movement as a significant
challenge to his administration’s broader economic and resource
strategies.
Thus, the place of Mau Mau in Kenya’s historiography is mixed.
Whereas some acknowledge its unrivalled contribution in the attainment
of independence, others, like the colonialists before, have dismissed
Mau Mau as tribal guerilla fighters wrongly given pride of place at the
expense of other liberation struggles across the country because of
ethnic bigotry and supremacy within Kenya’s postcolonial state edifice.
By Dr. Westen K. Shilaho, scholar of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg